The effects of the 2003 recall election on the 2006 California gubernatorial
election

Mark W. Wonnacott

As a codified institution, recall elections are not incredibly rare. Some
petition mechanism exists for removing elected state and local officials from
office in several US states. However, the use of this mechanism is at least
fairly rare. They are unique as occurrences in US politics because they require
the spontaneous and decentralized mobilization of the electorate. Under ordinary
circumstances, to get even half of the registered electorate to the polls to
vote requires an outpouring of resources towards transportation, education, and
advertisement. In a recall election, a substantial portion of that electorate
acts without relying on that centralized process. A petition circulates and
signatures are collected, and the electorate voluntarily participates in another
two polling exercises. This process requires
overcoming a variety of factors such as voter apathy, fatigue, and the declining
strength of traditional instruments of political mobilization that make election
turn-out low in America. This makes recall elections unique institutions worth
studying.

Because of their
rarity, recall elections are also somewhat shaky processes. The mechanism for
refilling a vacated office often has not been subjected to rigorous scrutiny to
determine the potential effects. Such was the case in California in 2004. A
critical mass of Californians successfully petitioned to have a recall election
on Governor Gray Davis, the first time this measure has been used in California.
In an ordinary election, only candidates nominated by a recognized,
state-sanctioned political party would appear on the ballot. Due to a loophole
in California law governing recall elections, anyone who collected a token
quantity of signatures could be placed on the ballot. As a result of this
loophole, a wide variety of celebrity and oddball candidates appeared, such as
adult entertainment star Mary “Mary Cary” Cook and former child actor Gary
Coleman. However, a plurality of voters ended up electing Hollywood star Arnold
Schwarzenegger, who had secured the Republican nomination. Schwarzenegger won
with a narrow lead over incumbent Gray Davis, whose lack of popularity had
initiated the recall (Carr 2004). Most of the nontraditional candidates failed
to attract substantial votes, with Coleman and Kary leading the pack at around
10,000 votes each (Carr 2004).

In November,
Schwarzenegger came up for re-election and won by a very clear 1.5 million vote
majority (MSNBC 2006). While the governorship of California has always been
hotly contested, and it is unsurprising that a Republican governor would win,
this is a much larger margin of victory than has been seen recently in
California (Carr 2004). The fact that at
virtually no time was Schwarzenegger’s campaign faced with a real challenger is
peculiar, particularly in a state where few governors serve for extended periods
of time.

Another phenomenon
that should be examined is the fact that, after experiencing record highs in
voter turnout with almost eight million (Carr 2004), voter turnout plummeted to
a new low, with 5.2 million ballots counted, roughly 2 million ballots shy of
the average (McPherson 2006). This is only 33.6% of registered voters.
Obviously, this is a troubling sign for defenders of elections as the principle
means of political participation, and is something those defenders should
attempt to explain so as to avoid similar situations in the future.

Three possible
narrative constructions of the event can help to explain the phenomenally high
numbers in 2003 and the phenomenally low numbers in 2006. The first of these is
the party politics story. This understanding would put the party structure at
the center of the explanation and illustrate the ways in which the changes
within the party and the different positions into which the parties are placed
are leading contributors to the turnout for the election, as well as the
eventual victor. The second explanation is one of candidate strength. This
explanation will focus on the ability of candidates to stick in the public mind
as a persona and to successfully market that persona to voters. This marketing
not only encourages them to select one candidate over another, but also to
select a candidate in general. The third explanation will examine the
substantive policy changes that took place during the election, specifically
focusing on the ballot initiatives proposed by Schwarzenegger in the later part
of his first term and the California public’s reaction to them.

The first step in the
party explanation is to examine the changes that parties may have undergone
starting in the 2003 recall elections. The Democratic candidate Gray Davis was
exceptionally unpopular. His failure to execute adequate policy change on
contentious immigration issues like driver’s licenses and work permits was the
primary impetus for the recall movement (Marelius 2006). The catalyst issue was
his ultimate failure to adequately deal with the economic problems facing
California. In 2001, California was experiencing rolling blackouts that the
governor’s office was accused of reacting to too slowly (Coleman 2003). In
December of 2002, Davis announced a record-setting $35 billion budget deficit
(Rojas 2004). Again, Davis took the blame and his approval rating dipped to its
all time low of 24% (Source?). This put the
Democrats in a very unfavorable position. They could either abandon their
incumbent and alienate themselves from the voices inside the party that had
elected him or they could stick with an unpopular candidate and lose out on the
substantial portion of the electorate that pushed for the recall initiative.
Either situation would be a very difficult one from which to campaign. As Davis
was already very unpopular, the Democratic party image was way behind from the
start. They failed to pick a position. The Democratic party selected a candidate
to run in the recall election, but did was relatively silent on the issue,
allowing the GOP to prevail.

This may be a
generalizable observation about recall elections. The incumbent party is
logically put in a difficult position. This is a distinctly different position
than simply running an unpopular incumbent. The primary process in regular
elections can serve to check this back. If an incumbent has serious electability
issues, then the primary process should provide another candidate. The recall
election, then, generally serves to hurt incumbent strength much more than an
unpopular incumbent could. Also, the ability of an incumbent party to run
another candidate is hampered by the party affiliation of the incumbent.
Essentially, in the instance of the 2003 recall elections, two Democratic
candidates were on the ballot. Voters could vote against the recall (essentially
a vote for Gray Davis) and select a Democratic candidate to fill the
governorship, but the confusing nature of the ballot for people wanting to
preserve the incumbent party may have hindered the Democratic candidate.

Furthermore, the
recall election has long-term results. The Democratic party was still deeply
divided in 2006. In this situation, in order to be effective, the Democrats
would have had to present a unified front behind a strong candidate in order to
have a chance in the 2006 election. They failed on both counts. Neither
candidate was very strong. Of voters polled, only 45% had an opinion at all
about Phil Angelides, the eventual winner of the primary, and only 40% had an
opinion about Steve Westly, the next highest vote-getter in the Democratic
primary (Hecht 2006). In addition, the primary process was hopelessly negative.
Both candidates resorted to attack ads very early on in the primary, leading to
deep divisions and animosity between branches of the Democratic party. This
animosity hurt voter turnout for traditional Democratic voters, who saw the
divisions in the party as indicative of failure. Towards the end of the election
cycle, many voters polled felt Schwarzenegger would win even if they voted for
Angelides (Salladay 2006). This discouragement helps to explain low voter
turnout as well as the landslide victory that Schwarzenegger enjoyed.

Even the process of
division worked against the candidates. Angelides was forced to spend a huge sum
of money in the primary election, making it very easy for the Republicans to
outspend them five to one in the general election (Kurtzman 2006). Additionally,
the negative nature of the primary election made it possible for Schwarzenegger
to avoid attack advertisements. He had merely to remind voters of the negative
advertisements run by Westly which described Angelides as an enemy of
environmental regulations, one of his central campaign issues (Kurtzman 2006).

The only real change
the Republican party underwent was the successful distancing of Schwarzenegger
from George W. Bush. In other elections around the country, Republicans took a
beating because of the low approval ratings of Bush (Kurtzman 2006).
Schwarzenegger was able to avoid this because of his independent persona. The
recall elections, which reflected a breakdown in the party system, allows
Schwarzenegger to position himself as an independent candidate. His affiliation
with the Republican party was more a move of political convenience than
political congruence. His unwillingness to support a number of unpopular Bush
policies such as the war in Iraq helped him evade a number of attacks that
Angelides leveled against him (Kurtzman 2006). Schwarzenegger’s evasiveness made
voters wonder why Angelides was discussing the President in what appeared to be
an unrelated election. Also, this distancing forced Angelides to waste a portion
of his already sharply limited resources, giving Schwarzenegger the edge in the
money contest, which allowed him to dominate television markets (Salladay 2006).

Fundamentally, then,
the recall election did damage to the Democrats from which they were unable to
recover. The albatross of Gray Davis hamstrung both candidates, and the
divisions in the Democratic party, caused by the recall elections, created an
extremely contentious primary that sabotaged both candidates. The recall
elections helped the Republican party by creating a media circus that allowed
them to run a non-partisan candidate to get a partisan agenda on the docket.
Generally, it can be concluded that recall elections catapult parties that have
a difficult time getting voters mobilized into the competition, and pose unique
problems for the incumbent party, regardless of historic popularity or candidate
strength.

The second mode of
explanation is the strength of competing candidates. The recall election,
because of the unique legal loopholes in California, brought about a tremendous
media circus (Salladay 2006). While Schwarzenegger had a defined political
platform, that he was going to “clean out state government of special
interests”, the most notable quality he brought to the election was his
pre-existing popularity and name recognition. Very few, if any, California
voters had not heard of Arnold Schwarzenegger. While this is also true of
candidates like Gary Coleman and Mary Cook, Schwarzenegger brought to the
campaign a unique combination of money, popularity, charisma, and political
ideology that enabled him to win a plurality in the recall election. He was a
strong candidate, and his capture of the Republican nomination provided him with
a base of voters that only needed a recognizable candidate behind which to
rally.

Further, the space
opened for Schwarzenegger in the recall election enabled him to gain leverage as
a political figure. Much has been written about the various advantages
incumbents wield. The most notable in Schwarzenegger’s case was his strategic
use of the threat of veto to negotiate compromise legislation for which he could
take credit (Nicholas 2006). Schwarzenegger was able to wield the veto power to
get the mostly-Democratic legislature to work with him on a variety of policies,
including a program designed to reduce California’s greenhouse gas emissions,
one of the issues the special 2005 election revealed was very important to
voters. This opportunity to use the veto power to build consensus to stack on
top of Schwarzenegger’s already impressive charisma would not have presented
itself absent the unique legal conditions of California’s recall election.

The failing of the
Democratic party to field strong candidates reflects a failure of strategy. As
both contenders in the 2006 Democratic primary were relative unknowns and were
unable to develop a strong persona in the media, they were unable to mobilize
voters in the same way as were the Republicans. The Democrats were running
career politicians of the same sort regardless of the fact that the political
climate had changed substantially post 2003. To be charitable, the Democrats may
have known they could not hope to field a candidate as charismatic and
media-friendly as Schwarzenegger, and may have hoped to shift the plane of the
election to some other forum more advantageous to the type of election strategy
they hoped to employ. In any event, their strategic planning was insufficient.

The model of election
here is one of competing personal images (White and Shae 2004). This model moves
beyond party-level analysis and discusses the marketing of personal statements
about candidates to the electorate. In this model, the candidate that wins is
the one who is able to ingrain in the public the most favorable personal image.
This model relies on charismatic candidates and professional teams of campaign
managers, and downplays the significance of parties to the election process.
According to White and Shae, the effect of political parties in American
elections has declined since the Progressive reforms weakened the effect of
machine politics and diffused control over civil services from the hands of
party bosses. This model seems appropriate in this context, given the above
statistics about candidate strength, although excluding the explanatory value of
political parties seems a bit extreme, given the connections political parties
have with campaign contributors and voter mobilization efforts, however, their
explanation does have a great deal of congruence with the evidence available
about the reality of the 2006 election.

The recall
election’s unique effect in this case was to create the media frenzy, and this
effect is unique to California’s legal conditions. It is much more difficult to
generalize about the effects of recall elections in general based on this
understanding of the 2006 election. However, given the rarity of such elections,
it would be unsurprising if similar, though less intense, frenzies may result.
In this way, it may be generally true that recall elections, due to their
uniqueness, require more media-friendly candidates, and subsequent elections,
where the effects of that media charisma are still being felt, may also require
fielding generally stronger candidates.

Finally, there
are policy changes conducted by the Schwarzenegger administration that may
explain the landslide victory. In several interviews, Schwarzenegger identified
himself as a non-partisan candidate. He moved to the center on a number of
issues, such as global warming, immigration reform, prison overcrowding, and
health care. He did so in a unique way. He took a gamble in 2005 by calling for
a special election in which ballot initiatives were presented to the public.
Specifically, these were Republican initiatives dealing with probationary
periods for new teachers, union strength, state budget caps, and legislative
redistricting (Marelius 2005). It was a gamble because the Governor actively
campaigned for these issues, linking his political fate with theirs. On the
other hand, by putting them to referendum, he avoided spending political capital
on potentially divisive issues. All four initiatives failed, but not because of
the legislature. In this respect, it doesn’t really hurt Schwarzenegger to ask,
even if he did campaign for the initiatives. Because they weren’t passed, no
blame can be assigned to Schwarzenegger for making a poor decision, and the
ballot initiative was a full year in front of the election cycle, which made it
very easy to refocus the election. In this way, the ballot initiatives gave
Schwarzenegger a good thermometer on the voting public and how likely they were
to respond to a particular version of his policies. This gave him time to retool
sufficiently that he was able to call himself “more democrat than Angelides”
(Brokaw 2006). The swing to the left that occurred after the ballot initiatives
was remarkable and illustrative of good planning by the Schwarzenegger camp. The
end effect of this policy shift was that it was much more difficult for the
Democratic candidate to move the election from a competition between personal
images to a competition between personal messages. As previously described, the
Democrats had little chance in a contest of charisma against Governor
Schwarzenegger.

The recall
election had little discernable effect on the policy mediations of the
Schwarzenegger campaign. The policy changes arguably would have occurred in any
election with the same candidates. This model of election does not allow much
room for the recall election to play a significant role in the 2006 elections.

In conclusion,
it is difficult at this point to determine the effects of recall elections in
general. In the California context, they appear to have the effect of moving the
election towards a competition between personal messages and posing immense
difficulties to the incumbent party. Recall elections appear to have the
greatest impact on political parties, which, according to some measures, are of
declining importance in American politics. However, they still undoubtedly play
a role in the determination of elections. Furthermore, recall elections appear
to have the effect of increasing voter turnout as they generate a great deal of
media attention. They also have the divisive effects on the incumbent party,
which can hurt voter turnout in subsequent elections. Further study on the issue
could examine other recall elections in which the media frenzy does not exist to
attempt to control that variable. Alternately, a longitudinal study about the
effects of the California recall election on subsequent elections could shed
light on the long term implications of such an election.

Salladay, Robert. “Back to
Politics as Usual, More or Less: Compared to the recall and last year’s special
election, this choice is more traditional, except for Schwarzenegger’s enduring
celebrity.” Los Angeles Times. October 15, 2006. Online. Lexis.

White, John Kenneth, and Daniel M. Shea,
New
Party Politics,
Thomson Learning: New York, NY, 2004.